


Walk Me Home

by blackorchids



Category: Legally Blonde - All Media Types, Legally Blonde - Hach/O'Keefe/Benjamin
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Female Friendship, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Healthy Relationships, Love, Missing Scene, Strong Female Characters, The Author Has Not Been To Law School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28014228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: When Elle realizes she wants to get married, she starts toplan, which is one of her many skills. She’s not valedictorian for nothing, people!
Relationships: Emmett Forrest/Elle Woods, Vivian Kensington & Elle Woods
Comments: 19
Kudos: 65
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Walk Me Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gemkazoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gemkazoni/gifts).



> This was a pinch hit that was suuuuper fun to fill!! I hope you like reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, dude :)
> 
> Title from the song of the same name by P!NK because that’s what was playing in the car as I’m posting this ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

It’s not like law school magically becomes _easier_ after Elle manages to miraculously prove her sorority sister’s innocence in what was, like, the first five minutes of enrollment. Obviously, Elle is fascinated by most of her classes—has the work ethic and study habits to keep her grades high, and has a fantastic support system that includes some phenomenal friends and a boyfriend who is as smart as he is attractive, but it’s _law school_. Of course it gets harder.

Even _so_ , that is absolutely no excuse, in Elle’s opinion, for almost two and a half years to pass without her giving marriage more than a passing thought. She’s _totally_ wife material, and Emmett is just about the most perfect example of husband material that she can find outside of soap operas.

Maybe Emmett is _better_ than soap operas. It’s worth considering, at least.

Either way, Elle is just a little peeved with herself for choking on her cosmopolitan in shock when her mom, in town early for a surprise visit after Elle had said she wouldn’t be able to come home for Thanksgiving, asks about _wedding bells in the near-future_. Her mother stares, surprised in her own right and also _so_ obviously appalled at Elle’s seeming loss in table manners.

“Do not tell me that you aren’t planning on marrying him, Elle, darling,” Her mother prods, diamond tennis bracelet glittering from her wrist as she sips daintily from her glass of white wine. “Not after your father has gotten used to the idea.”

A lesser woman would have rolled her eyes at the reminder of her father’s classist weariness of Emmett’s upper-middle class upbringing. Elle just flips her hair over her shoulder very glamorously, sniffs like the spoilt heiress she is, and retorts in a voice as sweet as honey.

“I’ve just been focusing on school, mom.”

Her mom displays her own character growth by not bringing up the fact that Elle is looking at reaching twenty-six years of age _unmarried_. The conversation drifts into other topics, and there isn’t even any strain or tension lingering, so Elle gets to fully enjoy brunch with her mother.

After her mom leaves, though, three days later, huge rolling suitcase the exact same tangerine as her bedazzled velour tracksuit, Elle _somehow_ encounters what must be every jewelry store ad currently running.

It’s not even a question, either, is the thing. _Of course_ she wants to marry Emmett. She’d loved Warner, but she’d never even begun to imagine that a relationship could feel this good—could be this fulfilling and empowering and _intimate_.

And once she starts to think about it, there’s really no room left in her head for anything _but_ color schemes and custom dresses and what it would be like to be with Emmett for the rest of her life. To go through life together, being a powerhouse lawyer couple, to maybe have a baby and definitely change the world. She’s not exactly sold yet on children, as a concept, but she _is_ sold on making the world a better place and looking fabulous while doing it.

And, okay, maybe Elle got into Harvard because of her looks, but she’s managed to _stay_ at Harvard because of her ability to make and stick to plans of action. This is just another assignment, probably. And everybody knows the first step to a good paper is research.

Before anything else, Elle has to figure out if Emmett even _wants_ to get married.

It’s not like being in her final year of law school is keeping her busy enough, or that Emmett’s _six_ classes offer him an abundance of free time, either, but Elle is good at time management. As he cooks her dinner on Wednesday—the only night that they get home around the same time and has, as such, been their date night for months now—Elle gets him talking about his parents.

Elle knows they’re divorced and wants to find out how much that may have affected him. For someone who has grown up with scandalous affairs and bitter fights for alimony as the norm in her friend group, hearing that his parents split amicably is at once foreign and reassuring. 

“We still always do holidays together,” Emmett tells her thoughtfully. “When my dad remarried, it just made the group bigger. My step-mom actually taught my mom and I this recipe on Hanukkah one year, as a bonding kind-of activity.”

Obviously Elle has to lean over the counter to taste-test it, smacking her lips thoughtfully and leaving him waiting for the verdict for several long seconds so that he can huff her favorite little reluctant laugh and press a kiss to her temple, calling her a brat like it’s an endearment.

Obviously it’s delicious.

After dinner, Elle insists they take the night off from their DVD collection of _Lost Worlds_ to watch a rom-com. The _Enchanted_ soundtrack is so good that she almost forgets the point of the exercise, but she remembers in time to snuggle close and sigh very dreamily when Derek Shepherd marries Giselle at the end.

Emmett doesn’t seem to have a reaction to any of it, beyond the general pleasure of cuddling with his girlfriend on the couch and some lazy kissing as the end-credits play a little too loud in their small living room, but Elle understands marketing better than most. Hopefully, the seed has been planted.

The following week is so intensely busy that Elle barely manages to squeeze in her bi-weekly manicure with Paulette, spends half of it reading out of two different books while Paulette dreamily describes her most recent romantic date with Kyle.

Elle finishes her reading while Paulette is painstakingly painting tiny judicial scales on the tips of her nails. Finally, she worries aloud a little about her current project—the path to marriage. She lays out all of the facts as she knows them.

“All signs point to Emmett being open to marriage in general,” Elle says, and then when Paulette demands to know how she knows this, Elle summarizes the few instances she’s managed to cook up thus far. “And if Emmett is open to marriage, then it stands to reason that he would be open to marrying me, specifically,” Elle continues. Her voice breaks, which is totally unexpected.

“Of course he would!” Paulette rushes to assure her. “You’re a bombshell!”

“He loves you,” says Trish from the next station over, and Violet, with her head in the drier, loudly agrees.

Elle thinks briefly about how _Warner_ had loved her, and still didn’t think she was marriage material. Remembers that Warner was an idiot. She still has to swallow before she continues, though.

“So now I have to find a way to get him to know that I’m ready to be asked,” she tells them.

“Come up with a reason to go shopping,” says Gail, because she still doesn’t know Elle that well. “Don’t stop in front of the jewelry store because that’s too obvious, but if you just slow down a little…”

It’s not a bad idea, especially since Emmett is categorically better at picking up hints than any other man Elle has ever encountered.

“I haven’t even _begun_ to think about my graduation outfit!” Elle says, her voice performatively wail-y, and Paulette winks.

Since he’s the best pre-fiance in the world, Emmett seems more than happy to spend five hours shopping with Elle the following Sunday. Like always, they each order a fruit smoothie and swap halfway through for the variety, and Emmett holds all of her bags in one hand so that he can keep his other free to lace with hers.

Later in the afternoon, Elle _does_ find two dresses that are serious contenders for graduation. She models them for him, preens a little when he insists he can’t choose because she’s equally beautiful in both. Falls a little more in love with him when he suggests she buy both so that she can keep deliberating without worrying that one might get bought.

Elle is sure that she pulls off the slow-down-while-passing-Tiffany’s _flawlessly_. They agree on a chic little Mexican-fusion restaurant for lunch, an extra chair pulled up to their table for all four of Elle’s huge shopping bags.

“Once I decide on the dress, I can start looking at shoes,” she tells him after they’ve ordered, and Emmett really does perk up at that because he definitely has a thing for her in heels, even if he hasn’t quite gotten around to saying it to her yet.

As they eat, she listens to him talk about his students, marveling at how fond and patient he is with them even when they’re frustrating little shits. Emmett so clearly suits being a professor, and Elle cannot imagine him as anything but. Thinking about how much he adores his students and how hard he works to teach them how to be good, _thoughtful_ lawyers makes her chest feel so warm and full of bubbles.

“I love you,” Elle tells him after he winds down from thinking aloud about how to get one of his classes to better learn to consider socioeconomic factors that might turn an open-shut case into one with more nuance.

He smiles at her, startled and pleased all the same. “Love you too,” he tells her easily, reaching across the table to take her hand, thumb brushing across the back of her knuckles automatically. Elle thinks about trying to determine if he’s focusing on her ring finger more than other fingers, and then decides to just enjoy the moment.

Elle hosts all of her friends for a week-long study-spa retreat just before finals. Having a graduate as her live-in boyfriend is definitely a draw, but on Thursday she kisses Emmett a dozen times as he leaves for a long day of office hours while Vivian uses her sharpest voice to get some of the lower years to focus in the living room. Paulette’s breathy laugh rings out soon after, because she always comes to their study sessions for the company.

“I will see you tonight,” Emmett tells her. “For a legal-jargon-banned date.”

“What kind of date is that?” Vivian teases as she wanders over, linking arms with Elle and grinning at Emmett when he scoffs playfully at her. “Good bye, Professor Forrest!” she calls as he finally leaves, hustling down the stairs with his leather briefcase slung across his chest.

Emmett raises one arm in acknowledgement, but does not turn back to watch them close the door, and Elle grins a little at Vivian, who winks. 

“Finally,” she says. “Now you can work on polishing off that presentation without any distractions!”

“Emmett is not a distraction!” Elle protests, like they hadn’t had sex on the couch in the middle of her reading her paper aloud to him the night before. Vivian laughs, dragging her back into the living room and handing her the only pink fluffy bathrobe, helping her wrap it around her shoulders and then settling her in Emmett’s armchair with a cup of relaxing tea and a pair of cold jelly under-eye pads.

Elle and Vivian have a very serious, guaranteed-successful-spa-study-camp itinerary, and it is helpfully written in vibrant pink expo marker on a small whiteboard that is taped to the wall. During their third-mandated break, in which Elle makes all six guests lean their heads back so she can paint their faces with an avocado mask and put cucumber slices over their eyes.

“In twenty five minutes, we will be working on flashcards,” Elle reminds them all in the same voice that her yoga instructor uses. “But right now, we are secret-purging. Remember, only share things that you are one-hundred percent comfortable with us knowing.”

Vivian pipes up with news about a date with a girl who is getting a masters degree in classical music, and the mask around her mouth cracks a little with her suppressed smile as everyone gushes and cheers. Nikki says she’s thinking about switching to a major in social work, and everyone makes appropriately sympathetic and thoughtful noises, offering little snippets of advice and affirmations.

They go around for a while, face masks drying, until Elle finally pipes up with her own. “I’ve been thinking about proposing to Emmett.”

Vivian sits up so sharply that her cucumber slices go flying, and she is not the only one to react with a tone stronger than mild interest.

“Well I think it’s a great idea,” Paulette says, munching on her own cucumber slices, her mask the most creased and crumbled from the repeated chewing. “Elle is the most empowered girl I know.”

 _That_ has the group agreeing, more sedate now that they’ve seemingly determined that Elle is not having a breakdown. David shrugs, going as far as to lean back and reposition his cucumber slices. “If Elle is ready to get married,” he says to the room at large, “And Emmett is not proposing…”

“I don’t see why she _couldn’t_ propose instead,” Enid finishes, nodding thoughtfully. The group’s support warms Elle down to her freshly pedicured toes, but Vivian has been quiet, and she’s the one who Elle wants to hear from the most.

Vivian is smiling though, wiping off her mask with her towel so that she can hug Elle tight without getting any of it in her hair. “I’m sure _you_ don’t need help picking a ring—” she mutters into the side of Elle’s face and Elle laughs, loud, clinging onto Vivian much longer than the typically less-affectionate girl is willing to put up with.

Reviewing flashcards goes by in a haze, people focusing well enough because they’re law students and it’s finals week, but ultimately less intent than they had been in the days before. Everyone is smiling, a few of them with green rings at their temples and jawlines from a too-hasty removal.

They devour several bowls of fruit salad, and by the time Emmett comes back, all of them have gathered their things and left, much more pro-hug than usual. Elle is showered and shaved and meticulously applying makeup in her silk robe.

He kisses her on his way through their room into their bathroom, hanging his hilarious tweed sports coat on one of the hooks in their closet. 

“How was study-spa?” He asks from the bathroom, the shower creaking on and the door open so they can keep talking.

“It was really good,” Elle gushes, rambles about how she thinks Jane is finally solid on contacts and how Jessie’s paper is just about the best take on the inherent unequality in the public defense system that any of them have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Emmett frets about one of his students asking for a second extension as he pulls up his slacks, and he’s zipping her into her pale pink dress when he quietly muses about receiving tenure and being able to be more lenient about deadlines.

Elle’s presentation the following Tuesday goes amazingly, and the adrenaline high makes her floaty and determined to buy the perfect ring for Emmett, so she goes to sit on a bench outside the building Vivian’s only exam is taking place, waiting semi-patiently for her to come out so they can hustle to Tiffany’s while Emmett is still proctoring his own exam.

Elle submits all of her final papers, finds the most perfect ring she can imagine, talks Vivian down from a panic attack over job offers, writes the most perfect valedictorian speech she can write, and then she’s graduating from _Harvard Law School_.

Just for the record, she _has_ a plan for proposing, and she has a _dress_ for proposing, but suddenly, up on the stage, teasing her graduating class to hide exactly how many gushy positive affirmations are in her speech, she can’t imagine waiting another minute to be engaged to the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with.

It’s lucky she’s eternally photo-ready though, because after the fact, the whole thing is a happy blur. 

All of her to-do lists are completed now, though, which means it’s time to find a new project. As if on cue, Bruiser barks.

**Author's Note:**

> shame me for my poor updating skills on [tumblr](https://rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com/)!


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